'We haven't announced any such thing'

UPDATE HP may be axing 27,000 staff members globally, but it could be about to help improve unemployment figures in India, with 15,000 hires possibly on the cards.

At least this is according to Indian news site Daily Bhaskar, which claims the troubled tech titan has written to Chandigarh city administrators in eastern India to ask permission to use a vacant space in the IT park.

The report suggests that outsourcing giant Wipro was allotted the 30 acres of land to build a campus in 2009 but never began construction.

Instead, HP expressed an intent to set up a base from which to recruit thousands of graduates, the report states, adding that the blabbermouth Chandigarh officials are reviewing HP's application to use the space.

In the spring HP began cobbling together its PC and printer businesses and on the enterprise side stuck its hardware, global accounts, and technology services team together.

Rationalisation is expected – and not just at veep level.

CEO Meg Whitman also announced just weeks ago that the US giant will slash some 27,000 jobs globally – or 7.7 per cent of the workforce – to save up to $3.5bn by the end of October 2014.